Jack Lowden had to bleach hair to leave Morrissey movie behind

Jack Lowden found working on Dunkirk “insane”.

Actor Jack Lowden has joked there was “a lot of hair dye” involved to lighten his locks after playing Morrissey.

The Scottish star portrays the iconic musician in biopic England Is Mine, set before the tall, dark and quiffed icon joined his band The Smiths.

Straight after filming the drama flick Lowden got stuck into Christopher Nolan’s epic adventure Dunkirk, based on the evacuation during World War II, and had to undergo quite the transformation to leave his rocker alter ego behind.

“That was insane. I’d never been on anything of that size. The cast was incredible,” he told Total Film magazine of Nolan’s movie, referring to the likes of Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy and Kenneth Branagh. “Even the kids that are still at drama school, some of the things they do are ridiculously exciting. I came off England Is Mine and went straight into Dunkirk. So it was very bizarre to do that. There was a lot of hair dye involved.”

For England Is Mine, Lowden, 27, got a closer look at Morrissey before he found fame with The Smiths in the early ‘80s, with the actor noting it’s a “portrait” of the artist rather than an impression.

And the chiselled star fully immersed himself in getting to know the songwriter before and during production, adding, “The only songs in the film are the songs that we know Morrissey listened to at that time. But on weekends, when I wasn’t shooting, I had a car and I’d f**k off to the Lake District and just play Smiths tracks the whole time.”

Dunkirk hits cinemas later this month (Jul17), while England Is Mine is released from August onwards.